“(…) but the important thing is that this matter be managed with logic.” He blinked then, and spoke again, so that a word came out that did not translate. “No. Cthia. I must not be misunderstood. Cthia must rule this, or we are all lost.” Jim looked puzzled. “I think I need a translation. It’s obviously a Vulcan word, but I’m not familiar with it.” Amanda looked sad. “That is possibly the worst aspect of this whole mess,” she said. “It’s the modern Vulcan word which we translate as ‘logic.’ But what it more correctly means is ‘reality-truth.’ The truth about the universe, the way things really are, rather than the way we would like them to be. It embraces the physical and the inner realities both at once, in all their changes. The concept says that if we do not tell the universe the truth about itself, if we don’t treat it and the people in it as what they are—real, and precious—it will turn against us, and none of our affairs will prosper.” She sighed. “That’s a child’s explanation of the word, I’m afraid. Whole books have been written attempting to define it completely. What Sarek is saying is that if we don’t handle this matter with the utmost respect for the truth, for what is really needed by everyone involved, it will end in disaster.”

“Of course… There’s another theory I like that I ran into a while back. It doesn’t satisfy Occam’s Razor, but in some moods it definitely satisfies me.” Jim looked up, curious. “You get to know quite a few people rather well, in my line of work… and there’s something I’ve noticed about the most successful of them, a common quality. The people themselves all have different names for it. But from where I’m standing, it looks as if they’re playing their lives like a game. With energy, delight. Usually not with too much anger—they tend not to be poor losers, either in card games or command.” Harb considered Jim for a moment. “I wonder, sometimes, if they know something the rest of us don’t. Sir, this is all generalization, there are always exceptions. There’s nowhere near enough data to base a genuine hypothesis on. But what if what we call life truly was a game? …as some of, say, the Terrene religions imply it is?”

(…) “What I’m leading to is that, if life truly were a game, and it started to get stressful-and you had for the time being forgotten it was a game, as people do even when they’re playing something as harmless and remote from ‘reality’ as a board game— “ (…) “—then if you had forgotten you were already playing, what would you do to deal with the stress?” Jim considered the conclusion for a moment before he said it out loud. “Go off and play…”

Uittreksel uit ‘The Wounded Sky’, geschreven door Diane Duane.

‘They ruled the world?’‘After a fashion,’ Klein replied.‘What do you mean: after a fashion?’Klein looked at the screens. His eyes seemed to be on the verge of spilling tears.‘Didn’t he explain? They played games, Mrs Jape. When they became bored with sweet reason and the sound of their own voices, they gave up debate and took to flipping coins.’‘No.’‘And racing frogs of course. That was always a favourite.’

Uittreksel uit ‘Babel’s Children’, geschreven door Clive Barker.

Dave Chapelle: Sometimes the offering drives. Like, if I have my idea it should drive.It’s just like if my idea says: “get in the car”. And I’m like: “where am I going?”Jerry Seinfeld: Right.Chapelle: The idea says “I don’t know, don’t worry, I’m driving.” And then you just get there.Seinfeld: The idea’s driving.Chapelle: Sometimes I’m shotgun, sometimes I’m, like, in the fucking trunk. The idea takes you where it wants to go.Seinfeld: That’s great.Chapelle: And then other times, you know it’s me, it’s my ego, like: “I should do something”.Seinfeld: “I should be driving.”Chapelle: Yeah.Seinfeld: And that’s not good.Chapelle: No, ’cause there’s no idea in the car. It’s just me. That formula doesn’t work.